2004-08-27

The world in your palm

I actually feel guilty about this - it's going to sound as if I'm being paid to advertise.

But - I absolutely love my Palm :)

I've had one before - I had a quite basic Palm III (in the case of an older model due to an upgrade of sorts) until it went belly-up. I did use it quite a lot - many a times did the alarm save me from embarrassing delays and programs like CityTime and TravelTracker (the latter of which I haven't got around to getting again but must) helped me a lot with keeping up with international work.

But I'm using my new one much more. Well, maybe not more if you measure in minutes of on-screen time. But qualitatively more, for sure. The NotePad application, for instance - I jotted down a rough copy of a diagram from a meeting the other day. It's actually barely readable, even to me, but I have just pulled it via the Palm Desktop on to a PowerPoint slide and can now quietly make a diagram on top of it before ditching it. "Voila toût", as the man said in French as his cot had stood near the river Seine. (Pardon that last one. It's an old saying of my father's, translated as directly as possible from the original Danish into English)

And it also does more and more magic for my - intended - writing. It simply beats having notes strewn all over the place or, even worse, thoughts about writing projects quickly being lost into the dark holes of my memory.

And then there's the PalmReader. I'd still prefer a real book - but for reading on the road, having 9 books stored on the Palm means travelling a lot lighter than when you're having them in your hand luggage.

I must say that the high-resolution colour creen of my Tungsten E also is a lot better than the screen I had on my previous model. This has meant that I could download a map of the local area in Paris around the hotel I was going to stay in back in May. And then it was just a question of popping up from the RER station, fishing the Palm out of my pocket and quickly finding my way there.

By the way, if anyone wants to pay me for this advertising - I could be all ears ;)

2004-08-26

Must ... be ... writing ...

(picture a zombie-like silhouette, stomping across a eerie office building landscape, arm stretched out in front, froth around the mouth ... "must be writing ... must be writing ...")

To your general information, I do not - or at least rarely - look like that. But I do sometimes feel that way. The urge to write is there, more or less constantly. The well-considered topics are there and the spur-of-the-moment things keep appearing in my brain (those, by the way, seem to be the ones appearing here).

What I don't have is time. I probably should be honest and say that what I don't have is priorities distinct enough to free up the time. Family time, household chores, walking the dog, watching the Danish women's handball matches at the Olympics, taking off for scouting weekends, even doing w**k - which of all these go above writing on the list? And which can be safely pushed below?

After all, in Maslowian terms, this writing thingy is probably at a level from where the top of the pyramid is within sight, so to speak. Following the theory, at least the shopping and cooking and paying of the bills comes first. Problem is, so does getting my beauty sleep. If only I could take an hour or two when quiet has settled in the evening, lots of words could be strung together. And actually that happens (as witnessed by the referenced entry above) - but it's at the risk of my typing at work the next day being done with the forehead against the keyboard.

Like in eyu7h76hvbgfffffffb. Which looks kinda silly when you present the PowerPoint overhead with that particular typing on it...

*sigh*

I'll make an open-ended vow: I will arrange for time slots to get some good writing done. By some date. And it'll feel good!

2004-08-20

P2P court ruling

"A US federal court ruling says peer to peer services are not legally liable for the copyrighted works shared by their users, reports AP."

Further:

"Nikki Hemming (...) called on the entertainment industry to 'stop litigating and start partnering with us. Legislation is not the answer, commercialization of P2P is.' "

< rant >Wonder how long it'll take the music industry to get that. Also, when they'll realise that CD sales is not going to be increased by more and more compilations of the same songs or CDs with just the one good hit and a lot of so-so for the rest. But rather good bands, new and inspired music, backed up by solid marketing - also for the names that customers do not already know ad nauseam...< /rant >

A PS for the record: as a matter of fact I do not have any peer-to-peer software installed. Tried Kazaa's (at that time) latest version once - and was appalled by the amount of adware and probably also spyware it coinstalled, cleaned the whole thing up and never have looked at it again... Yuk.

Marketing 101

2004-08-18

A new coffee machine

Great news, clear the frontpages...

The office has got a new coffee machine. The old one had its service lamp blinking for at least 9 months - so it probably was due for a major overhaul.

The new one is very much like the old one - except for the bit with the service lamp. To be fair, it's also noticeably cleaner, the filter holder is black plastic (which probably hides month-old coffee coatings better than the previous metal one), it seems quicker to brew a pot of coffee and the second heat plate on top - which may hold an extra pot warm until the coffee really, really is reduced to syrup-like consistency and foul bitterness - actually works.

Oh - and it's got a little knife-thingy on the side so you don't have to dive into the drawers for unsafe sharp instruments to open the pre-measured bag of coffee that goes into the filter.

2004-08-06

Ships

Ships, that is - I am not talking ferries or dinghies, the rowing boats you can rent to splash your family around on lakes or any of the huge cruise cities that adorn quays also now in Copenhagen.

No - I mean *real* ships. With sails and masts and lots and lots of rope and even more wood.

And I don't really know what it is with them. But I like them!

I do not claim to know much about them, either - for instance I probably cannot name any of the different types with any degree of accuracy. But I enjoy a stroll up and down a quiet harbourside very much when there are some of them tied up there - they quite simply please me.

I have once had the luck to be sailing with one of those beauties for a few hours - off the Atlantic coast of Maine in the US. Hoisting sails hand over hand (are sails hoisted? pulled up? ...?), listening to the sounds of the wind in the big sails, the creaking of wooden parts working against each other, sniffing the smells of the wood, ropes, salt air... A genuinely lovely afternoon. The ship - a two-masted thing of beauty - had been left to rot somewhere down the east cost when it was saved by this guy who subsequently invested an enourmous amount of time and resources in bringing her back to former glory. Very fittingly, he had been awarded several prizes for his work - and the ship was on the list of historical ships of America.

And no -I dream do not of becoming the skipper of one or even part time owner or crew member of a ship. Not time enough in my world for that. But I'll continue making a stroll past them now and then, enjoying them for just being there.

An old Danish song actually touches upon the topic:

I like simply touching the shipit's kinda like a greeting from lifeI don't know why - probably you just feellike that when the day is done

That particular text - which is a quiet, daily life marvel in its own right - is really about the longing to be somewhere else, to see some of all the exotic and wonderful places out there just over the horizon. Heaven knows that I have stilled that thirst a couple of times over with the travelling I have been doing over the last 15 years - and will continue to do so, touch wood. But even though our strolling past the ships down there at the harbour stems from different reasons within, the joy is much the same.

2004-08-04

Uargh!

The weather's rather warm and clammy - the clouds almost reached ground level on the airport motorway this morning. Not nice.

And the Admiral apparently hasn't got their thing together enough to be able to serve a cup of coffee in the reception/bar area for early check in guests at 9 in the morning. Highly surprising - and not for the better...